Flight Review: TAROM B737-800 Economy Class
Flight#: RO648
From: Cluj-Napoca (CLJ)
To: Bucharest Otopeni (OTP)
Flight time: 55min
Aircraft: Boeing 737-800
A recent trip to Romania to attend Aviation-Event CLJ 2025, an aviation conference gathering industry professionals and media in Cluj-Napoc, Transylvania, offered me the chance to fly on one of Europe’s oldest airlines, Tarom, albeit on the rather short flight to the country’s capital, Bucharest. So, keep reading to find out how the experience of flying Romania’s national carrier, Tarom, was like!
Some context about Tarom in 2025
Before we get into the flight review proper, let’s start by providing a bit of context about Tarom, Romania’s flag carrier.
This is one of the continent’s classical carriers, dating back to the post-war Communist times in Romania. During that time, Tarom was, in fact, a bit unique among the airlines of the Eastern Bloc, because it operated some Western aircraft. This is due to the fact that the Ceaucescu regime at the time wished to keep a small degree of independence towards the other dictatorships of Warsaw Pact.
So, after the fall of Communism, Tarom did, of course, modernize, but it has remained a state-owned firm and, more often than not, it has found itself in a fragile financial situation which has required support from the Romanian state. The lastest of these occurences was in 2024, after the Romanian government received permission from the European Commission to inject some fresh capital into Tarom, on condition that it implements a restructuring plan.
To be fair, Tarom faces two extremely formidable rivals in its home turf, Wizz Air and Ryanair, which have both a very significant presence in Bucharest and throughout Romania.
Nevertheless, you can tell from some small details, from the hodgepodge of aircraft types it operates until recently, to some elements in the cabin, that Tarom is possibly not living through its best times. This may change, however, in the near future, if the airline’s management succeeds in turning it around coinciding with the planned arrival of new Boeing 737 MAX.
Lounge at Cluj Airport
Although this was an economy class flight, since I had been attending Aviation-Event CLJ 2025, the conference host, Avram Iancu Cluj International Airport, granted me access to a lounge area on the ground floor.
I am not sure whether this is the regular lounge for airline passengers or some sort of VIP section of the airport for occasional use, but posting here a pic for reference. It was pretty basic in amenities (just a few drinks), but huuuuge and plush, plus is always nice to wait for your flight in a quiet, calm environment. Access from here was direct to the tarmac, joining the other passengers there for boarding.
From what I read online, I think there is another “regular” lounge on the first floor of the airport, which is shared by several airlines plus the members of several lounge and loyalty programmes.
Cabin and inflight experience
This Tarom B737-800 was fitted with some, let’s say, “old school” seats, which is an increasingly rare of occurrence in European short-haul flights.
By old school I mean that they are heavier and more robust than the slim seats now in vogue and, interestingly, they were also fitted with seatback screens (although, as I will comment on further down, they were not working at all).
They were upholstered in leather and provided a decent seat pitch, even when accounting for the literature pocket at knee level. I was in the last row of the cabin, so mine didn’t recline, but seats in the other forward rows did (I tested it myself before exiting the plane).
Overall, a rather dated look, but with its pluses too, since it was a rather comfortable seat! (while modern seats may be great for weight saving, etc, they are not necessarily more comfortable than old types!).
I also kind of liked the Burgundy-like colour scheme, although I found the warm tones a bit inconsistent with Tarom’s brand, which is basically made of dark blue hues.
All passengers got a serving of water (see the pic), which is always a nice touch.
Any other food or drinks must be paid for. This was a rather short flight and had already been eating on the ground, so I didn’t order anything this time
The food and drink menu in the literature pocket of my seat menu was incredibly worn out (the pages had even massive holes on them!). This may have just been anecdotal, but it is one of those things that can dent the image of an airline and that are really easy to fix (I later found out that there were more copies of the menu in mint condition available for distribution in another pocket at the back of the cabin not even one meter away!)
Unfortunately this was not the only element that appeared to be totally worn out, sections of the seat’s leather upholstery were also in a rather bad state (I understand the airline is possibly not investing in this since it is getting new planes in a few months time, but still, it is one of those small things that I can’t fail to note down in a flight review).
Despite the presence of the seatback screens, there is no digital inflight entertainment (IFE) on Tarom (although some years ago it had experimented with AirFi’s bring-your-own-device streaming service in at least part of the fleet.
What Tarom has, though, is a rather decent inflight magazine. Yes, old school, as well, but I still like to check these!
Last but not least, I would like to mention that I was positively surprised by the efficiency of the boarding and deboarding process.
I don’t know is this was just coincidental or whether these Romanian domestic flights are mostly made of frequent travellers that travel light and mind their business or, quite simply, the fact that Tarom operates its B737-800 aircraft with a less dense cabin (160 seats, of which 144 in economy) than the typical low cost airline, but it was really fast!
Our Take
This experience turned out to be quite a mixed bag: on one hand, some elements of the experience feel rather dated and in need of improvement (like the state of some cabin elements), on the other hand, it still managed to deliver an overall experience that was possibly better than the typical low-cost airline.
Btw, you can also read my comments about Tarom (in Spanish) on the Kayak.com travel blog.